


smile, though your heart is aching

by elsaclack



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Trying For A Baby, fight me, hooty hoo, jake LARPs, post trying fic, pregnancy reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:26:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23043970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elsaclack/pseuds/elsaclack
Summary: They watch old reruns on the couch, Jake’s arm firm around her shoulders, pulling her into his side.  Blunt nails scratch lightly along her upper arm, more of a faint tickle than anything else through the sleeve of her sweater, and Amy sighs before she lets her head fall to Jake’s shoulder.  She can see the corner of her calendar in the war room from where she sits, but for now it’s nothing more than a blip on her radar; oddly enough, she can’t actually remember the last time she was this close to him without sex hanging over their heads.  So she closes her eyes and nestles in a little closer, letting herself revel in it, and Jake’s hand flattens against her arm as he pulls her closer still.“We’ve still got time,” he reminds her, voice soft, barely audible over the television.  She doesn’t open her eyes.  “And we’ve got options.”She nods after a moment, letting one of her clasped hands settle over his thigh.  “I know,” she murmurs.  “I don’t wanna think about it right now.”
Relationships: Jake Peralta/Amy Santiago
Comments: 15
Kudos: 185





	smile, though your heart is aching

**Author's Note:**

> *mushu voice* I LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE

Jake, to his credit, manages to hide the vast majority of his disappointment. She catches the flash of it across his face, but then it’s masked - by acceptance, by determination, by hope. His disappointment flickers and dies as quickly as the last sparks of a firework lighting the sky off in the distance, and for a moment, Amy wants to cry. 

She’s cried a lot in the last month. Some of it with Jake, most of it in secret. She’s just never felt so _helpless_ before - having babies is practically a genetic condition in her family, hardwired in the Santiago DNA. It should be _easy_. But it _isn’t_ , and she can’t seem to find any rhyme or reason behind why it isn’t easy, and the thought of visiting her doctor just to find out that for the first time in her entire family lineage a Santiago _can’t_ have babies is just south of debilitating.

The negative pregnancy test makes a hollow _thunk_ as it lands against the bottom of the empty kitchen trash can, and Jake flashes her a small, encouraging smile. “I love you,” he reminds her, voice soft.

She nods, jaw clenched against the sudden sharp emotion in her throat. “Love you, too,” she murmurs once she’s certain her voice won’t warble.

They watch old reruns on the couch, Jake’s arm firm around her shoulders, pulling her into his side. Blunt nails scratch lightly along her upper arm, more of a faint tickle than anything else through the sleeve of her sweater, and Amy sighs before she lets her head fall to Jake’s shoulder. She can see the corner of her calendar in the war room from where she sits, but for now it’s nothing more than a blip on her radar; oddly enough, she can’t actually remember the last time she was this close to him without sex hanging over their heads. So she closes her eyes and nestles in a little closer, letting herself revel in it, and Jake’s hand flattens against her arm as he pulls her closer still.

“We’ve still got time,” he reminds her, voice soft, barely audible over the television. She doesn’t open her eyes. “And we’ve got options.”

She nods after a moment, letting one of her clasped hands settle over his thigh. “I know,” she murmurs. “I don’t wanna think about it right now.”

He resumes his gentle scratching, turning his head to plant a kiss against the top of her head. “Okay.” he says, and she feels the line of his nose against her scalp. “I love you, Amy. _So_ much.”

Her chest feels a little looser than before, so she squeezes his thigh as she pulls her head up. He’s looking down at her, the faintest traces of anxiety gathering in the fine lines around his eyes; she smiles, and the anxiety softens. “I know,” she tells him, and the anxiety disappears altogether. “I love you, too, Jake. More than you know.”

He cranes his neck just slightly to kiss her, and it’s soft and warm and healing. She’s missed this, too - kissing for the sake of kissing, rather than it being a vehicle toward quick sex followed by hours of monitoring her body. It makes her heart flutter and lurch in an entirely pleasant way, and when she pulls back to see a dazed, dreamy smile plastered across his face, she can’t help the quiet laugh that bubbles up from the pit of her gut.

* * *

They don’t have sex for a while - neither one of them says anything about it, but Amy can tell they’re both relieved. The desire to have a baby is definitely still burning in Amy’s mind, but it’s moved to more of a backburner - it’s easy to ignore when she focuses on managing her beat cops or hanging out with Rosa or reorganizing her bookshelves just for the hell of it. Jake seems to immerse himself in his things, too - playing more video games and spending more time with Charles and joining some Die Hard-focused LARPing group on Facebook that meets twice a month in Central Park.

(“I gotta say, they _really_ loved your Holly wig, babe,” he tells her as he pushes the fringe of unruly and uncombed curls out of his eyes. “I think I just scored that role permanently.”)

It’s kind of nice, no longer being ruled by a calendar or her body’s natural rhythms. It’s nice eating red meat again, it’s nice being able to drink wine with dinner, it’s nice not having to sit by a window when Rosa smokes her cigars. It’s like waking up from a six-month fever dream to find the world outside exactly the same as it was before.

Not _exactly_ the same, of course. Before, she only knew how hollow she could feel when Jake wasn’t around; she didn’t know exactly how hollow she could feel with him sitting right beside her on the bathroom floor.

 _Whatever_ , she thinks as she pours herself a glass of red wine. It’s a cabernet sauvignon, and it’s her _favorite_ brand, and she doesn’t even remember when she bought this bottle because it was like discovering a lost treasure when she spotted it on the wine rack on top of their fridge. It’s six o’clock on a Tuesday and she’s already in her pajamas, shamelessly padding around the kitchen in a pair of threadbare wool socks stolen from Jake’s sock drawer with her three-quarters-full glass of wine in one hand. She’s scrolling through Instagram with her other, occasionally pausing to like a stray picture, mentally scrolling through her _suggested for you_ list on Netflix, when she hears Jake’s key in the lock.

She looks up when the door opens, an easy smile on her face that quickly broadens at the state of him - he’d gone to Shaw’s with Charles after work and had _clearly_ enjoyed the liberation on drinking. His clothes are disheveled - shirt untucked and unbuttoned, hoodie hanging crookedly from his shoulders - and his hair is a mess, looking not unlike he’d let Charles ruffle it one too many times as the night progressed. His eyes are half-mast and he’s a little unsteady on his feet, bracing one hand against the wall as he toes his sneakers off. She considers snapping a picture while he’s distracted, but before she can maneuver out of Instagram, he spots her.

And the change in his demeanor is immediate.

“Ames!” he half-shouts, eyes suddenly so wide they look to be in danger of popping out of his head completely.

He trips over his shoes but doesn’t fall, stumbling forward and catching himself on the couch, eyes never leaving her face. “Whoa,” she says, quickly setting her phone and her glass on the kitchen counter before hurrying to meet him halfway (they learned the hard way three months into dating that Drunk Jake and kitchens absolutely do not mix). “Hey, honey, are you okay?”

He straightens up right as she reaches him, immediately folding himself in around her, enveloping her completely in a warm, swaying hug. She hugs him back automatically, arms cinching around his waist and eyes fluttering shut as she breathes him in. He definitely smells like booze - like _whiskey_ , specifically - but beneath that is the familiar scent of his deodorant and aftershave that settles like a warm blanket over her senses. “I like it when you call me that,” he says, voice rumbling in his chest. He hiccups, and she smiles into the folds of his jacket. “Makes me feel good.”

She quietly laughs at that, pulling back to look him in the eye. He looks a little dopey as he grins down at her - eyes half-mast again, and now she’s close enough to see that they’re a little bloodshot, too. His head falls forward without warning, so when he pecks a kiss against her lips she’s half-laughing, half-shouting in surprise. “You are such a _dork_ ,” she laughs when he pulls back again.

He laughs, significantly slower than her, and lets his head tilt back. She’s watching his adam’s apple bob in his throat when he suddenly springs to attention, his gaze fixated on something over her shoulder. “Oh, you found the cab.”

She turns her head - all she can manage with Jake’s grip keeping her in place - and from the corner of her eye, sees her half-finished glass of wine sitting on the kitchen counter. “You bought that?” she asks incredulously.

Jake nods, blinking slowly. “For you,” he says after a moment. “It’s your favorite and it was on sale at the grocery store, so…”

“That was really sweet of you,” she says earnestly, pressing up to the balls of her feet to kiss him again.

“I was gonna make a _thing_ out of it,” he says once she’s fallen back to her heels. She feels his fingers lacing together against her back, so she settles against him a little more and laces her own fingers together against his back. “Like, I was gonna make dinner and have that wine and like - it was gonna be a date.”

“That’s so sweet,” she says softly. “I’m sorry I ruined it, I had no idea -”

“You didn’t ruin anything,” he interrupts, face contorted in incredulity. “You’ve made everything so much better, you - you don’t even know. I just wanted you to show you, y’know? I wanted to make you feel the way I feel when I’m with you.”

“You don’t have to do that, Jake, I promise - I’ve never felt as - as _loved_ as I feel with you. You don’t owe me anything, you don’t have to do any of that -”

“I _want_ to, though,” he interrupts - and now both of his hands have flattened against her back, his arms taut where they’re resting against her sides. “I _want_ to show you how much you mean to me. I want to make you feel - good. I want to make you feel _good_.”

She can feel her pulse quickening at the way his eyes rake over her face - what was dopey and bloodshot before has become darker, _wanting_ now. She struggles against a swallow and his gaze drops down to her lips, to her throat. Slowly - watching him watch her - she parts her lips.

He’s on her in a split-second, swallowing whatever noise or gasp of surprise wrenches out of her throat, and her entire body is on fire with carnal desire for the man pawing at the elastic waistband of her pajama bottoms. They stumble toward the couch - they _stumble_ because Jake seems to be trying to swallow her _whole_ \- and when the edge of the cushions brush against the side of her leg, he all but throws her down across it.

She has just enough time to get her bearings back before he’s dragging her closer to the end of the couch by her ankles, already down on his knees before her, looking very much like a predator closing in on his prey. “I wanna make you feel good,” he murmurs again - so softly, a contradiction to the way his fingers pull so roughly at her pajama bottoms. “I wanna make you feel good,” he repeats, pulling her closer still, pressing a kiss to the inside of her right knee. “Please, Amy,” he murmurs, and it’s a miracle she remembers how to breathe. “ _Please_ let me make you feel good.”

Hands shaking, chest heaving, she pushes her hair out of her face and meets his desperate, hungry gaze. “Okay,” she breathes.

She wakes up sated and sore the next morning, stark naked on their couch, to find herself tangled with her equally naked husband snoring something fierce in her ear. And despite the fact that his boxers somehow ended up on top of the entertainment center and she had to pour the rest of her glass of wine down the drain, she can’t wipe the grin from her face for the rest of the day.

* * *

She tells herself she’s not going to take another pregnancy test. Not for a while, at least. Jake, in all of his blessed, drunken enthusiasm, hadn’t bothered with a condom - something she didn’t fully process until the next morning - but, still. The thought of another pregnancy test - another _no_ \- makes her head hurt and her heart ache.

Besides, it’s _nice_ being able to do this with him again. To have sex fueled only by their passion for each other - she feels like they’ve just started dating again, like everything is fresh and new once more. She loves Jake, loves him more than she ever knew she was capable of loving another human being, but she’s missed this part of it, too. It’s nice to have it back, in a way.

They do it two other times in the two weeks that pass - it feels exciting and unpredictable, and it’s rejuvenating to the rest of their relationship, too. They joke. They tease. They play stupid games and make stupid bets. They even go out on a date - a real-life, honest-to-god _date_ , which they haven’t been able to do since she became a sergeant. They drink wine and hold hands and act goofy together, and then they go home and ravish each other, and she will _not_ have that ruined by another false pregnancy test.

She’s home alone when it happens. Jake’s off at work - texting periodically, but sparsely enough that she can tell he’s in the midst of a busy day - and she’s in the middle of cleaning the living room when her gaze drifts up to the war room.

They closed the doors to that room after the last false pregnancy test, telling themselves it’s just to take their minds off of it, but that was a month ago and neither one of them has even mentioned it since then. She can still see the calendar through the glass - still on December, the last time they touched it - and then beyond that, at the dust gathered on her all-but-forgotten bookshelves.

She makes her way inside cautiously, feeling more like Indiana Jones entering some sacred temple than a homeowner trying to dust her library. The calendar is still and unassuming, and yet Amy feels like one false move will send everything around her crashing to the ground. So she approaches it slowly, duster in hand, trying not to let her eyes catch on any specific notes and failing spectacularly.

Whatever ache in her chest she managed to shuffle away in the time since is now back in full force; a sense of failure, of unworthiness, drips from her joints and clings to her bones. With shaking hands, she rips December from the calendar, finding January pristine and unmarked, aside from the baseline she’d drawn in each month when she initially started on the calendar.

Her eyes fall automatically to the first day of her menstrual cycle, and her breath hitches. It was supposed to be four days ago. She’s been so caught up in this honeymoon phase sequel, she hadn’t noticed she never started her period.

And despite every instinct in her body telling her to stay calm, she can’t extinguish the little bud of hope that ignites in her chest.

There are still several unused pregnancy tests in her drawer in the bathroom. They’ve shifted to the very back of the drawer, shuffled there by various other products. But they’re there, waiting for her, unassuming in their plastic wrapper when she slowly pulls one out.

“It’s not the end of the world,” she tells herself when she settles on the toilet. “We still have time. We still have options. It’s not the end of the world.”

She recaps the test once she’s finished and sets it on the bathroom counter, busying herself with starting the shower and undressing in the two minutes between. Heart in her throat, eyes closed, she turns back toward the counter slowly.

And when she opens her eyes, she sees another negative.

She nods to herself, ignoring the tears pricking at her eyes, and quickly sweeps the test into the trashcan. And it’s fine, really, because they _do_ have time and they _do_ have options, but none of that knowledge makes it feel any less like the end of the world.

She cries in the shower. She can’t help herself.

She’s managed to regain some semblance of composure by the time the water runs cold, but she buries her face in her towel for a moment before setting about touseling her hair. She’ll have to get rid of the test before Jake comes home - she’ll tell him about it eventually, she knows, but she’s certain she’s not ready yet. She can just hide it in the empty pizza box sitting on the kitchen counter and carry it out to the trash chute like that - even if he comes home before she has a chance to get to that chore, he’ll never see it.

She wraps the towel around herself and steps out of the shower, thankful for the fogged mirror obscuring what she’s sure is her reddened, ruddy reflection, and stoops to grab the pregnancy test out of the trashcan.

And when she glances down at it - an automatic reaction - she freezes.

A second line - so faint she can barely see it - has developed next to the first.

She drops her towel.

A positive. A positive. She’s holding a positive pregnancy test.

“Oh my god,” she whispers. “ _Oh my god_.”

The spark of hope is back, now an engulfing flame, and she nearly rips the drawer out of the counter in her haste to grab the other pregnancy tests. She’s heard of false positives, of course, just like she’s heard of false negatives, but she’s got five different brands of tests in her shaking fingers and a _positive test_ clattering against Jake’s side of the bathroom counter and she’s _going_ to make sure that this is the real deal.

She leaves them all on the counter to develop, too keyed up to even notice the fact that she’s still naked until she catches a glimpse at her crazed reflection in the mirror on the back of their bedroom door. She quickly dons a pair of Jake’s boxers and one of his shirts, throwing her wet and unbrushed hair up into what she’s sure will be an absolutely insane-looking topknot, almost bouncing out of her skin as she watches the seconds tick by on the antique clock atop her wardrobe with one hand on the bathroom doorknob.

And when two minutes pass, she has to tell herself to calm down when she nearly rips the door from its hinges.

Six pregnancy tests sit on the counter before her, lined up in a perfect row. Every single one of them is positive.

She nearly falls to her knees from the force of the sob that explodes in her chest.

She texts Jake - she isn’t sure what she says, something along the lines of _get home right now_ based on the way it won’t stop vibrating with his responses - and twenty minutes later, she hears the front door swing open. “ _Amy_?” His voice is sharp with concern, his footsteps loud and quick as he rushes through the apartment to where she _can’t stop sobbing_. She hears him rushing into the bedroom and peers up at him from where she’s curled on the floor against her wardrobe - she’s sure he’s never looked so freaked out in his life, pale and windswept, eyes bugging out of his head. “Amy, what the hell is going on? Are you hurt?”

She shakes her head, trying to catch her breath, and he kneels down beside her. She points to the bathroom door, still ajar, watching his gaze follow the direction of her finger, to the pregnancy tests only just visible from that angle. And he freezes.

Her hand falls back to her knees, but he doesn’t automatically move; the grip he’s got on her knee tightens, and then loosens. “Are those…?” She nods, wiping her face on the backs of her hands. His eyes are wide, an unfamiliar emotion on his face as he searches her gaze. “Are - are you…?”

She sniffles, lets her hands fall back to her lap, and nods.

Tears automatically flood his eyes, dripping quickly down his face, as his brows knit together and rise in an upside-down V. He huffs out a breath, his grip around her knee tightening once more, and then he’s pushing himself up to his feet and pulling her up with him. Slowly, fingers threaded tightly with hers, he shuffles closer to the bathroom counter. The sound he makes is completely foreign in her ears, but she doesn’t have time to process it - he’s hugging the life out of her a second later, face buried in the crook of her neck, lifting her up so her toes barely brush against the ground. She lets herself dissolve again, ignoring the practical voice in the back of her mind saying this tight of a hug probably isn’t good for the baby.

The _baby_. _Their baby_.

He lets her fall back to her feet a moment later, but only to hold her face in his hands - he kisses her hard, his joy a palpable thing as his hands quickly slide down her neck and under her arms to flatten against her back. She kisses back the best she can, delirious, sinking her own fingers into his hair and letting the joy envelop her fully. There are plans to be made, schedules to be fine-tuned, and a spare bedroom that needs to be transformed into a nursery, but that can wait.

“Oh my god,” he whispers when he pulls away, letting his forehead linger against hers. She laughs, reaches up between them to brush away the tears still steadily streaming down her face. She needs to make an appointment with an Obstetrics specialist to actually confirm what the tests are telling them, to reiterate what she knows now to be true. “We’re gonna have a _baby_.”

“We’re gonna have a baby,” Amy repeats, testing the weight of the words on her tongue. Jake releases a choked and watery laugh, which makes her blood simmer, and suddenly those are her favorite five words on the planet. “We’re gonna be _parents_.”

Jake laughs again, longer than before, and pulls her back in for another tight hug - and now she’s got four more favorite words. She’d never live through those horrible six months again for all the money in the world, but _this_ \- this moment, this impenetrable joy - wipes out every last second of sorrow and misery.

“I love you so much,” Jake says, voice louder, cracked with emotion. “I love you, I love you, I’m - _god_ , I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Amy mumbles, eyes squeezed shut, thumb stroking against the nape of his neck. “Thanks for getting drunk.”

“ _Definitely_ worth the hangover.”

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact for all u ao3-ers who aren't on tumblr - this is how my mom found out she was pregnant with me!! she took a pregnancy test that came back negative, threw it away, took a shower, and when she got out the test had finished developing and it was positive lmao and then she took 5 more to be sure and!!!!!! 9 months later i arrived to confirm it was in fact a real positive


End file.
